Smartphones are amazing and as a result a lot of people have jumped on board. So, when the annual financials came out, it was a minor surprise to see that the smartphone market was in significant decline. There are many reasons for this, but the main one has to be that older devices are holding up great compared to newer devices. This makes consumers less apt to make the substantial investment to get the latest and greatest device.

One of the major aspects of smartphones is how portable they are. Thanks to them, business professionals can be productive while out of the office, no matter where they are. Unfortunately, this also means that they have more of an opportunity to lose their devices, along with the data they contain. If the device is Android-based, then you can alleviate this trouble thanks to built-in features that can help you find it.

Today the smartphone camera has become one of the biggest selling points when consumers look to purchase a new phone. This is largely because it is crucial to the use of many of the applications that your average user uses the smartphone for. It just goes to show that in less than two decades how much utility the phone has than it did when the Samsung SCH-V200 first offered users the option of taking pictures with their phone.

Have you ever found yourself packing too many things for a short trip? What about your technology? Do you have multiple devices? The truth is that no matter the reason you are traveling, you don’t need to pack like royalty to be able to be productive while you are on the road. Today, we talk about how scaling down your technology while you travel is a solid practice.

Wireless charging seems to be a perfect idea - imagine if someday, our devices would never run out of charge? This may be why such aggressive progress has been made toward building a better battery charger. However, not everyone is convinced that wireless charging will have the effects that are desired of it.

Wireless charging is a challenging technology. While the benefits are clear as day (imagine, only having the one cord to supply power to the charger itself!), the concept has yet to see the mass implementation and adoption one would expect it to. Today, we’ll look at this underperforming technology’s history, a few applications that could be seen in the future, and the holdups it is seeing currently.

Learning how to use a new technology can sometimes be troubling. If you’ve been a dedicated Apple customer throughout the years, but are considering switching allegiances to Android, you should know that simple differences between the two platforms can end up disorienting. Here are a few things you have to know when switching away from the iPhone.

With more and more businesses relying on mobile devices for their business they have to be sure that the use of these devices doesn’t present security issues for the company. With all that is happening in business computing today, finding out how you can protect yourself in lieu of the prevalence smartphones play in the business world is important. Here are a few tips on how to lock it up or lose it, altogether.

Businesses can benefit from the use of personal mobile devices in the workplace, yet there are also potential dangers in allowing mobile and Internet of Things devices to access your network. In order to reduce these dangers, you need to put some limits and guidelines on the use of such devices in the workplace.

If we asked you to count the number of mobile devices in your workplace, would you be able to do so? This includes smartphones, laptops, tablets, and others--anything that’s not a workstation or hardware tied down to your location. While mobile devices can be beneficial for any business, it’s still important to keep security at the top of your mind. Here are three topics that you need to be sure you’ve considered before allowing mobile devices in the workplace.

Though it’s still a somewhat new concept, payment via mobile device is gaining in popularity. The latest smartphones make it easier than ever to pay bills or send money whenever needed. Yet, this also presents an interesting conundrum. What’s the best way to make mobile payments, and how can they be processed with minimal chance of being compromised?

More organizations are revamping their traditional IT infrastructure to favor new technology that allows for greater mobility. Not to be outdone, even major government departments are making this move, like the U.S. Department of Education.

Augmented reality is a growing trend in the technology industry, and perhaps one of the best known uses of it today can be found in the extremely popular mobile device app, Pokemon Go. However, hackers have seized the opportunity to infect players who want to “catch ‘em all” with a backdoor called DroidJack - something that certainly won’t help gamers “be the very best.”

How many of your employees have a smartphone? The answer is probably most (if not all) of them. In the United States alone, nearly two-thirds of adults own a smartphone, and many of them depend on the device to do much of their personal computing. As a result, many workers, even if they are instructed not to, will use their devices while at your office. This is why many companies have put in place a comprehensive Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy.

Thieves stealing mobile devices like laptops and smartphones have reached epidemic proportions. In fact, 2013 statistics from Consumer Reports and LoJack show that two million laptops were stolen that year, along with three million handsets. Translation; it’s way more likely for your mobile device to be stolen than you probably realize.

When was the last time you let your phone’s battery die on you? Due to the takeover of mobile technology in the workplace, smartphones have basically become inseparable from their owners, particularly the ever-busy business owner. Despite the imperative role that smartphones have in the workplace, you should know that there are several battery myths that might be holding you back from achieving maximum efficiency with your device.

I will be using the two largest platforms, Android and iOS, to describe the differences between native, mobile web, and hybrid apps. The windows phone and other platforms are out there but they hold a very small percentage of the market.

Native Apps are mobile device applications developed for a specific platform such as Android or iOS. They are built using a language native to that platform, java for Android and Objective C for iOS. They are installed through an app store like Google Play or the Apple App Store. They have the best performance and are more stable. They can access the phones built in features like GPS, accelerometer, address book, and camera for example. They are capable of working offline. The down side is that they are very expensive to develop. Since they are built for just one platform, multiple versions have to build to run on other platforms.

Mobile Web apps are not true mobile applications but rather websites that have built to run inside of a browser on the mobile device. They are usually written in HTML5 and JavaScript. The look and feel can be almost the same as a native app. You should not think of them as just website though they are very different than a traditional website. Traditional websites generally do not look good and often do not even function properly when view on a mobile device. Mobile web apps however are built specifically for the mobile environment. They are designed to look good and to function on a mobile device. Often they are installed on the phone as an icon, just like a native app, but they using a mobile browser in the background. They do have access to some of the built in features of the device but it is limited.

Hybrid apps are both, native app and mobile web app. They start out life like a mobile web app, usually being written in HTML5 and JavaScript. But they are then processed through a software tool like Cordova, PhoneGap, Appcelerator, Ionic, Xamarin and wrapped or otherwise transformed into a native app. They are then installed from an app store and function just as a native app would. They are not true native apps though and may not work in all situations for example a 3D game. But for the majority of apps out there you would not be able to tell the difference between hybrid and native.

We’re all aware of how the proliferation of mobile devices is changing the workplace, but let’s take an objective look at this trend. Are mobile devices changing the workplace for the better? Are employees actually using their personal devices to get more work done? Or, is the BYOD trend a bunch of hype and nothing’s really changed? Let’s find out.

Apple is back with another iPhone! The Silicon Valley-based hardware and software manufacturer has released the new versions of their extremely popular iPhone series of devices. The two-headed approach that Apple took with their second incantation of the iPhone 5 (the 5s and 5c), is replicated this time out as well. After being surpassed by Samsung over the past two years, does the iPhone 6 and its larger version, the iPhone 6+, have what it takes to get Apple back on top?

One of the greatest things about today's technology is that it has grown more mobile, and some employees like to bring their own devices from home to use for their workplace. This is called BYOD, and while it is useful sometimes, it might be putting your business at risk.

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